aliennazero - Tumblr blog

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father and son

yapping underneath

i'm not good w/ words but you guys have to understand my vision here: connor, basically a dog to the police. wants to carry out his mission no matter what, but his own emotions poke holes into his will and he starts doubting what he was programmed to do. i feel like yoshida's starting on an arc like that. in part one he wasn't really told much and he wasn't curious enough to dig. no additional details, just paid to do his job. but in part 2 he's emotionally invested in a way. he's developed (or tried to develop) relationships with both the war fiend AND chainsaw man. so now guilt follows whenever he carries out his job's demands—an emotion he isn't used to feeling when doing his job.

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PUUUUUUUNKSSSS

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Kishibe bring Hirofumi to his workplace or something

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🐙🪚

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nobody to blame but yourself

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i hope one day i can forgive myself

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I'm actually still crazy over this

Like father like son.

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Let's make the revolution, but let's make it right s’il vous plaît…

Yes I need to take a break but I'm not only tired but I'm fucking autistic so let me say two quick words

I think Haruka is a character worth exploring, and that he's deeper than the comic relief he seems to be, because I think he's a very good representation of adolescence.

Yoshida doesn't live his adolescence as a public hunter, Asa almost rejects the experiences because of her social isolation and emotional problems, which implies that they are teenagers but want to carry the weight of suffering like adults.

And what is Haruka? The perfect example of the mix between childhood and coming-of-age.

Denji is unable to experience adolescence because he has been deprived of his childhood, or even his humanity, and his interactions lead inexorably to rejection and suffering.

Haruka, on the other hand, is a useful standard by which to compare the other characters' failings in exploring their own adolescence.

Haruka is portrayed as arrogant, but not as negatively pretentious, but as an over-confident teenager, following a role model to the point of pretending to be him, of having a false cable across his chest.

He's also hard on the others, representing those teenagers who never minced their words when pressing Asa's failures, just as he remains deeply human, panicking, relying on his role model to save him.

Above all, his typical teenage behavior and funny yet profoundly candid personality are at odds with what adolescence is all about: realizing the world we live in.

If Chainsaw Man is so popular with teenagers, it's first and foremost because he remains anonymous, so everyone can see what they want in his face, but he's also an element of confrontation with the established order.

When I say that Chainsaw Man is a fairly mathematical manga, it's because everything fits together perfectly: if teenagers can make Chainsaw Man an object of protest, or even make it their own design, it's precisely because they don't see Denji behind Chainsaw Man.

If everything finds its balance, it's because the teenagers see in Chainsaw Man something superior, to the point of making him a model, an ideology, while Denji, the boy behind the mask, puts himself in the position of standing outside normality.

Denji can't belong to normality, since Chainsaw Man's interest is in disrupting the established order, whether it's the dominance of demons or what parents think.

So he's in a position of literal support, since his only point of interaction is to be acclaimed without being recognized.

It's interesting that Haruka's here, because he's a Chainsaw Man fan.

Denji has been a figure in the shadows, supporting a teenager in need of guidance in spite of himself.

He was the savior of a humanity prey to demons in spite of himself

But from a more symbolic point of view, Denji is literally dismembered, because carrying this on his shoulders as a teenager, even though his rank is denied, leads not only to exhaustion and withdrawal, but also to a literal breakdown.

It's as if the chair has just cracked... then the adolescence that stood over it also collapses...

People love Denji with difficulty, while he loves them with ease

People adore Chainsaw Man and completely ignore Denji's plight

Teenagers need to see Denji, to see his state of dismemberment, to see every last part of his being instrumentalized.

Because that's what he is, an image from which everyone can pick and choose to see what's missing.

That's why Asa has a missing arm, because she's in the position of a savior who doesn't wallow in her lack and compensate for it with Chainsaw Man, but focuses on the mission of putting him back together.

We repeat: the teenagers have projected themselves into Chainsaw Man as a means of fighting against the established order.

But isn't projecting oneself and being saved by Chainsaw Man precisely what the established order is all about?

Wouldn't it be revolutionary to save a savior who has always asked to be saved? Just as the suffering of the people has been ignored has needed saving

Revolution... represented by what?

Guillotine.

And that's precisely where I find it all interesting, because Haruka effectively compensates with Chainsaw Man in everything he lacks, when he was portrayed completely panicked during the aquarium arc, Denji was serene. Haruka may have a cable on his chest, but he'll never dare pull it.

This absence of fear is what keeps Chainsaw Man a machine. Denji has no self-worth, not a little arrogance like Haruka, so he's not afraid of danger. Whereas what constitutes adolescence is precisely the fact of becoming attached, of having things you value and are not afraid of being deprived of.

Above all, being an adolescent gives you a protective status, protected by society. So Haruka experiences what Denji experienced: being deprived. Deprived of what he holds dear. Deprived of his status as a child protected to be a terrorist. Haruka is a teenager who needs to be protected, but is now seen as a terrorist, a threat to order.

To be a threat to the established order, while at the same time being guaranteed by it, is the exact ambivalence of what Chainsaw Man is, and what Haruka is experiencing, being in the shoes of his savior in an attempt to save him.

The guillotine demon has an interesting design, a huge bird as a kind of almost inanimate ornament, to emphasize its interior, a piece of skeleton hanging headless. How does it feel to be close to decapitation? We suffer in anticipation of what we're going to miss: our head, death, the skeleton, and what we're going to leave the world, a body that's missing something.

Just as others must learn to compensate for their own insecurities, Denji must allow himself to feel his own, and instead of accepting suffering, to compensate for it like a human being with his nearest and dearest, his entourage, his family.

Because the right behavior is not to artificially complete oneself by rejecting one's fear and accepting one's suffering, but to accept one's incompleteness in order to be better influenced and completed by others. That's why Denji's loved ones are there to help him, even though he's been cut into pieces. Just as the teenagers saw in Fami, whom they reject, this guillotine, both reversing the order and focusing on what they lack, poor children in identity crisis.

We're in a bit of a pre-French Revolution mood, which I like, so let's embrace it completely by concluding with a quote from one of France's bloodiest revolutionaries, Robespierre:

"First of all, you should know that I am not the defender of the people; I have never claimed that lavish title; I am one of the people, that's all I've ever been, and that's all I want to be; I despise anyone who pretends to be anything more."

To make a revolution not to overthrow the order, but to be a simple, incomplete, imperfect teenager.

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Hello! With the discussion of Yoshida with your recent analysis, what's your perspective on Yoshida offering Denji the choice before: of being chainsaw man or having his family and how much of that was Yoshida enforcing his own ideas of what's good for denji vs his efforts to help denji in the limited scope of his position? I feel like this could have been talked about before on the blog but with added context from csm 156 interested in how this develops too

Denji is Yoshida's reflection that he refuses to see

The answer might be easy if I aligned myself with my own position, the one I established in my analysis 156, which attempts to theorize that Yoshida is on Denji's side

But you know I know I haven't convinced everyone with my blindness around Yoshida's hidden goodness. So I'm going to answer your question, but from the opposite position: let's explain Yoshida's reactions, whether as a non-ally of Denji or as an enemy. I know this may confuse you because you'd like me to analyze chapter 133 in relation to what I analyzed about chapter 156. But even if I assumed the opposite, I would have come to the same conclusion.

I love Yoshida, and even though I seem to have left him out of my analyses, I've always reflected on every one of his interventions. And something strikes me, Yoshida often seems to be talking to himself, even deluding himself almost as if to hold on.

In chapters 120/121, Yoshida invites Asa. Now fans (like me!!!) are fantasizing about rivals, a fake love triangle and a date. But in reality, it all falls depressingly flat.

But this chapter remains interesting for two reasons: two people share their experience of solitude as the only way to avoid disappointment and be happy. However, Asa projects herself into a possible love with Yoshida.

It's like reciting something to convince yourself but secretly wishing for the opposite…

But what's interesting is that we take the position of thinking that everything Yoshida said was linear.

Let's review. Yoshida knows that Asa was leering, that she looked depressed, and since he's watching Denji, he must have known about the date, hence the warning that comes later. So why get involved? As Asa's Nayuta-altered memory made him the executioner, why make her pain worse?

Because Yoshida must have had a childish reaction. It's as if, for once, he hadn't quite accepted his role as a spectator of events. I think Yoshida must have seen himself in Asa in some way. In chapter 121, Asa is all silence and Yoshida is for once almost in monologue. It was as if everything he said would convince him a little more out loud. Whether it was his theory of happiness up to........ "stay away from Denji". That point. Part of the points that concern him as much as they concern Asa.

I think and I'm convinced that even by not interpreting Yoshida as an ally, he became more sensitive and involved with Denji's plight and didn't always know how to place an emotional wall between them. Because Denji catches him off guard, makes Yoshida's smiling mask fall off. And this is something I've never verbalized before, but it's a pillar in my interpretation:

Being with Denji pushes you to be yourself.

Because Denji refuses the social game, doesn't tend to judge as teenagers of this age usually would, and has extremely sincere reactions that are so unpredictable that they don't allow for calculated responses, responses that form the shell of other characters like Asa and Yoshida.

What Asa liked about Denji, above all, was that he was able to give her confidence and make her proud when everyone else was putting her down. You don't like fish, so what? Eat starfish. Because yes, even if it was boring, I saw you, I listened to you and you made an impact on me. Because you're not insignificant.

Denji has that effect on Yoshida. Very symbolically, during their new interaction in part 2, the protagonist doesn't remember Yoshida. Of course, it's quite funny, because it can be interpreted in all sorts of ways, like the fact that Denji is so uninterested in guys that he forgets them so easily. But it's symbolic for Yoshida's character. He's so fake and so in control that Denji doesn't perceive anything in him.

And it's when he becomes more and more desperate as a result of these reactions, and when his mask gradually breaks, that Denji finally remembers his name. Because Yoshida acts less like a public hunter and more like himself, like Yoshida.

I think in chapter 133, it's really a way of trying to wake Denji up and help him. But then again, it helps to weaken Yoshida's mask. When Yoshida repeats that Denji has only two choices, that of his family or Chainsaw Man, Denji repeats that he has two. From Yoshida's point of view, this is fundamental.

The system offers only one choice, only one possible path. But Denji opposes both. In a chapter about protest, we also talk about his position towards the system. Oppose it, protest as if in the background, claim the symbol of Chainsaw Man or oppose it, see it as a societal evil, a danger of undermining the system. For I repeat, Yoshida has decided to believe in the system when Denji distrusts it.

So Yoshida gets angry, belittling Denji as if he can't see the absurdity of this dilemma imposed on a boy who has been given a choice. Who was only told there were only two choices when there were three. Rehearsing allows Yoshida to convince himself, but we see that this controlled mask has completely disappeared, giving way to anger and a kind of panic. Because Yoshida's ideals are unravelling.

Denji is a reflection.

Reflecting the cruelty of the mafia that Katana doesn't want to admit, the dream of going to school that Reze is trying to forget, allowing the trust that Asa thought impossible and the reflection of Yoshida: a teenager, who will trace a third path to the two that will be reserved for him.

If Chainsaw Man allows you to project what you want, have or be in him, hence the pandemic of CSM wannabe. Denji, hidden behind it, is doing something far more unbearable: showing us who we are.

Aki's vengeance gives way to a desire to be surrounded by loved ones, loved ones he may not be able to protect. Thinking only of oneself shows Power, through her sacrifice for Denji, that she is capable of love even if it goes against her survival.

So chapter 156 takes on a softer version. I repeat: why did you wake Denji up just to tell him he'd lost?

That Yoshida had warned him? Once again, through a strategy of self-conviction and self-protection, what Yoshida is doing is reminding us that complete alienation from the system is better than individual affirmation (which is what Denji is punished for, having repeated that he is Chainsaw Man). This identical public hunter's costume is the symbol of this submission. Yoshida is no longer even a fake high-school student. He's just a public hunter.

But I find this chapter takes on an air of funeral and goodbye. Yoshida's costume, taking on that of someone in mourning in a symbolic way.

Because saying goodbye to Denji.

It means saying goodbye to yourself.

So I ask you, Anon, and you, the reader, does Yoshida really want to continue refusing to see his reflection ?

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I draw Chihiro x Hakuri (Chikuri) from Kagurabachi. They're so silly. Also expect me to write essays for Kagurabachi too (hopefully) in the future (lol). I really love Chihiro, he's my oldest son now.

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insert kagurabachi meme

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I miss posting on tumblr so here, some sketches

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Most of the characters in Chainsaw Man are obscure - it's like seeing half-finished portraits.

Apart from the protagonists, there are only fragments of the others.

I don't know, there's something modest about this kind of writing, but above all, it's paradoxically effective to say nothing.

Fujimoto delves into the character of Asa Mitaka, exploding her traumas and flaws, while supporting her moments of glory, but while she's being put under the microscope, there's Yoshida.

Like an ink blot, powerful without understanding the resulting sacrifice, there in the foreground then disappearing on the next page, absent for a dozen chapters then suddenly present

A black hole

I like it

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alexa play teenagers by mcr

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get lost!

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Beautiful, beautiful boy....

sketch